Free Republic

If you were hoping to upgrade all the computers in your house to Windows 7 as a present to your loved ones, and let’s be honest an upgrade from Vista really will show you care, you’re going to have to pay extra. In a move that makes about as much sense for pleasing your customers as handing out coal filled stockings, Microsoft has discontinued the 3 license Windows 7 Family Pack. WindowsITPro reports that stock of the discounted Windows 7 upgrade is already drying up at online retailers like Newegg; and though you can get it in some local stores,...

Men, if you've been looking for a manly fistful of fragrance, a scent that, say, invokes the adrenaline rush of NASCAR rather than a shirtless jog on the beach, take a deep breath -- the industry is paying attention to the growing percentage of guys who are taking care of their own grooming and buying their own scents. That's why, alongside faces like Matthew McConaughey and James Franco (shilling for Dolce & Gabbana's the One and Gucci by Gucci, respectively), you're likely to see rapper 50 Cent pitching Power, and Common promoting Diesel's Only the Brave. Words such as "power"...

Battle of the South Florida billboards heats up The billboard catches the attention of drivers and truckers traveling on the highways. "YOUR WIFE IS HOT" -- BETTER GET YOUR A/C FIXED," it reads, in big bold letters. A clever and sexy slogan developed in January by Air Around the Clock, an A/C and appliance service based in Broward County. But now the slogan is generating a lot of heat after its competitor, All Year Cooling, flipped the phrase this summer. "YOUR WIFE IS NOT HOT! Because you called All Year Cooling to replace your A/C rather than the other guys,"...

The Washington City Paper reports that the team's vendors were selling beer to patrons while they made use of the facilities last Sunday during their game against the Kansas City Chiefs. The report says a poster named Gracelander first complained about the washroom sales more than a year ago on the Redskins' official message board ExtremeSkins.com. "[W]hat made me mad was when I went to the bathroom at the start of the 3rd quarter and this guy was in the BATHROOM selling beers to guys who waited for the urinals. I found this just wrong on so many accounts." While...

Video Description - Quote: October 12, 2009 All presidents have periods where they lose popularity. So companies tying their brands to individual politicians are either naive about politics, or they and their ad agencies are run by people suffering from groupthink. Were they all drinking the Obama kool-aid? Had they not considered what might happen when Obama inevitably fell from messiah status to that of mortal politician? Category: News & Politics Tags: barack obama pepsi politics inaugural inauguration dc ny nyc marketing advertising democrats republicans protest protests t-shirts vendors

This month, like every October, a sea of pink ribbons washes over products from sneakers to snacks. While the effort raises research dollars, it leaves some breast cancer survivors feeling that companies are profiting from their pain.When KimZielinski was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 33, well-meaning friends inundated her with products bearing a little pink ribbon. Each product’s maker promised a cut of the sales price to a breast cancer charity, and these friends felt they were supporting the cause and, by association, Zielinski. A petite brunette who’s now 35, she was enormously grateful for...

Having spent much of the past thirty years of my life in the advertising industry, the flaws of President Obama’s health care message are apparent and massive. Most people outside the ad business will tell you that commercials try to beat you over the head to make you buy what you don’t need or want. In truth advertising that doesn’t address the public’s needs or wants does not work. On top of that if a consumer keeps being exposed to a message that does not meet a need, they begin to tune it out quickly, it’s called wear-out. Finally if...

Microsoft is fessing up and apologizing for altering a Web site photo to change a person's race. A photo on the Seattle-based company's U.S. Web site shows two men and a woman sitting around a conference table. The ad reads, "Empower your people with the IT tools you need." For the U.S. audience the men are Asian and African American. But on the Web site of Microsoft's Polish business unit, the black man's head has been replaced with a white face. When you look real hard, its clear there is something off about the white man sitting in the middle...

LOS ANGELES: Software giant Microsoft Corp is apologising for altering a photo on its website to change the race of one of the people shown in t he picture. A photo on the Seattle-based company's US website shows two men, one Asian and one black, and a white woman seated at a conference room table.

LOS ANGELES — Software giant Microsoft Corp. is apologizing for altering a photo on its Web site to change the race of one of the people shown in the picture. A photo on the Seattle-based company's U.S. Web site shows two men, one Asian and one black, and a white woman seated at a conference room table. But on the Web site of Microsoft's Polish business unit, the black man's head has been replaced with that of a white man. The color of his hand remains unchanged.

I finally had to sit down with my 11-year-old daughter for “the talk.” Despite my best efforts to preserve her innocence and protect her from growing up too quickly, I simply had to tell her some important facts of life. No, we didn’t have a talk about how babies are born. This talk was about America’s assault on girlhood. The time finally came for me to explain to my daughter the relationship between media and marketing and money, and why some people think nothing of exploiting girls if it increases their ratings, sells advertising and beefs up the bottom line....

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Alabama's ban on a wine that features a nude nymph on the label became a business opportunity for a California vintner who is preparing a marketing campaign to capitalize on being "Banned in Bama." The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board recently told stores and restaurants to quit serving Cycles Gladiator wine because of the label. Board attorney Bob Martin said the stylized, art-nouveau rendition of a nude female with a flying bicycle violated Alabama rules against displaying "a person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner." Bill Leigon, president of Hahn Family Wines in Soledad, Calif.,...

A Missouri car dealer is giving away vouchers for a free AK-47 assault rifle with the purchase of a pickup truck.

With one word Monday, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele helped the GOP get back in the fight over health care and the entire Obama agenda. The word was “experiment.” “Candidate Obama promised change,” Steele said in a speech at the National Press Club. “President Obama is conducting an experiment.” Steele went on to accuse Barack Obama of carrying out dangerous experiments with the nation’s health care, with the economy, with taxpayers’ dollars.

Grand Strand marketers turn eyes toward Europe. BY MIKE CHERNEY MYRTLE BEACH — When it comes to attracting foreign visitors to the Grand Strand, some local tourism leaders are looking to Congress for help. The Travel Promotion Act of 2009, which has been introduced in the House and Senate, would create a nonprofit corporation to advertise the U.S. as a travel destination in foreign countries. The campaign would be funded by industry contributions and a $10 fee on foreign travelers who do not have to pay for a visa. The travel industry, including the U.S. Travel Association and the American...

The princess industry has been booming in the past few years -- not just the Disney dolls and scratchy toy-store ball gowns that are a rite of passage in most American girlhoods, but a brazen new breed of princess products that target a far wider age range and tap into less seemly attitudes. The hot-pink, leopard-print princess backpacks, T-shirts, purses and bedspreads that girls are now buying (or, rather, their parents are buying for them) have little to do with indulging sweet princess fantasies and everything to do with catering to over-indulged princess egos. [Taste] Sara Schwartz Take the popular...

Happened upon Obama's page on health care, and the words in all caps STAND WITH THE PRESIDENT, and DECLARE YOUR SUPPORT stood out to me. You might also sign up to be Barack's friend, and keep in mind that the page is POWERED by HOPE. If you click through to maybe sign up there, you read this innocent statement: I support President Obama's three principles for real health care reform, and I call on Congress to enact a plan upholding them in 2009. If you didn't read the previous page carefully or don't care, you're about to sign up for...

CHICAGO (AP) — Reporters at the Chicago Tribune say they believe the marketing department in recent weeks solicited subscribers' opinions on stories before they were published, a practice they said raises ethical questions, as well as legal and competitive issues. An e-mail signed by 55 reporters and editors, sent Wednesday to Editor Gerould Kern and Managing Editor Jane Hirt and obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, questions why the newspaper was conducting the surveys and what stories were used. They also wanted to know which readers were surveyed and whether any story had been altered as a result of reader...

America is raising a generation of children on porn - and your child just might be one of them. According to the London School of Economics, nine out of 10 teens who go online will view pornography. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that 70 percent of those who viewed porn stumbled across it - many while innocently doing their homework - and had not been looking for it. The purveyors of hard-core porn are so fixated on creating addicts out of our sons and daughters that they have made it virtually impossible for children to escape their clutches. Even one...

At Stanford University, California, two sales representatives from Nike were watching the athletics team practise. Part of their job was to gather feedback from the company's sponsored runners about which shoes they preferred. Unfortunately, it was proving difficult that day as the runners all seemed to prefer... nothing. 'Didn't we send you enough shoes?' they asked head coach Vin Lananna. They had, he was just refusing to use them. 'I can't prove this,' the well-respected coach told them. 'But I believe that when my runners train barefoot they run faster and suffer fewer injuries.' Nike sponsored the Stanford team as...

It's an advertiser's nightmare. Layoffs multiply, spreading anxiety. Americans spend less, hurting businesses big and small. And companies slash marketing budgets, raising the stakes for remaining ads. Like all of Nikki Becker's personal training clients, Dawn Hanson (on ball) benefits from a $4-a-session price break in this economy. Becker introduced her "stimulus package" last fall as a way to help her clients -- and her business, Miss Fit Adventures -- weather the recession. "It's different from just a particular industry going bad," Becker says. "Every industry is going bad." Most avoid mentioning the lousy economy. After all, why remind consumers...

Background: Volvo Cars (owned by Ford Motor Company) claims their all new Volvo XC 60 to be the world's safest car. The consequence: The Toyota people have worked themselves into a rage and now take legal actions. (The following is a translation of a Swedish article. My English isn't perfect, but I hope what follows at least is comprehensible:) "Toyota disapproves of Volvo's claims of the new XC60 to be the world's safest car. Toyota now sues Volvo in the Swedish Market Court (Marknadsdomstolen). In their application to the court, Toyota argues that there indeed are cars around the Globe...

Despite a near collapse that required $45 billion in federal taxpayer bailout funds, Bank of America sponsored a five day carnival-like affair just outside the Super Bowl stadium this past week as President Obama decried wasteful spending on Wall St. Brian Ross investigates the bankers who sponsored Super Bowl festivities.The event – known as the NFL Experience – was 850,000 square feet of sports games and interactive entertainment attractions for football fans and was blanketed in Bank of America logos and marketing calls to sign up for football-themed banking products. The bank staunchly defended its sponsorship, saying it was a...

During the 2008 Presidential campaign for empty-suit Obama image and advertising was everything; remember the hour-long infomercials he saturated the TV airwaves with? However, since he became President, Obama realized capitalism is bad and advertising must have government imposed limits. Read on

"Yes we can,'' the Obama campaign proclaimed. "No you can't,'' says the Obama White House of the varied attempts to cash in on the brand Obama built. Or maybe they can, or can't. The lawyers are looking into it, Bloomberg News reports" ### President-elect Barack Obama has created his own brand - represented both by the iconic images of the candidate who campaigned for "change'' and by the "Yes we can'' and "Change We Can Believe in" slogans generated by that campaign. Now the Obama White House, mindful of the "worldwide fascination'' about his election, First Amendment free-speech rights and...

Barack Obama’s popularity makes him a marketer’s dream. Now, the honeymoon may be over for those trying to profit from his appeal. White House lawyers want to control the use of the president’s image, recognizing the worldwide fascination about Obama’s election, First Amendment free-speech rights and easy access to videos and photos on the Web. “Our lawyers are working on developing a policy that will protect the presidential image while being careful not to squelch the overwhelming enthusiasm that the public has for the president,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. Obama’s calls for change and his “Yes We Can”...

The nation's best-selling beer is giving its cans and bottles a makeover next year, with a focus on the color blue and the brand's new emphasis on refreshment and what the brewer calls "drinkability." The change comes as analysts say more people are buying beer instead of higher-priced wine and spirits. Anheuser-Busch, the St. Louis-based U.S. unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev, introduced the concept of drinkability with a series of ads in early October telling drinkers the Bud Light brand has flavor and won't fill them up. Next, Anheuser-Busch, bumped up the release of the second wave of its $50 million...

Finding An Honest SEO International Internet Marketing Company In London By Joel Leyden United Kingdom News Agency Tel Aviv -----October 14, 2006......One of the greatest challenges facing any international export or import business in London today is being found on the Internet. The Internet has changed the fundamental means for how we conduct international business. It provides instant, real time answers to many of our daily commercial and personal questions. But now that you have a Website, can your site be found when one performs a search on Google, Yahoo, Live.com or AOL for your company's product or service? Chances...

Great article describing what I noticed very early in Obama's campaign. Obama ran as a brand rather than a traditional candidate. I think this explains the early loyalty, particularly by young or new voters, to a man with very little experience and a track record, what little he had, which clearly did not match his rhetoric. Obama is the proverbial empty suit, but due to precise and effective branding he is perceived as the more preferable candidate to his target audience, the youth and persuadable voter.

Win or lose, many marketing experts agree that Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency will provide the blueprint for political campaigns to come. There is the message and design discipline, the embrace of social media, and—most importantly—an openness to the idea that candidates, like brands, are built from the bottom up rather than the top down. As Scott Goodson, founder of agency StrawberryFrog says, "He is not a brand in the traditional sense, he is a cultural movement." Call it Politics 2.0. Headed by chief strategist David Axelrod and manager David Plouffe, and with help from new media director Joe...

A Hemline Index, Updated By TAMAR LEWIN More suicides? Fewer male births? Less back pain? More laxative sales? Data points litter the landscape as economists, sociologists, psychologists and marketers examine the societal changes, big and small, trivial and traumatic, that accompany a bad economy. And with this particular version of a troubled economy — a stock market that goes into convulsions at 3 p.m., a looming global recession, a $700 billion bailout plan that may or may not work, and a jittery public wondering what is coming next — changes should flow as freely as profits in good times. It’s...

Ryanair on Friday claimed Sweden's Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK) was out of touch with the "Britney Spears generation" after the agency accused the discount airline of running a sexist ad campaign. In defending the advertisement, Ryanair questioned whether the ERK accurately reflected the views of most Swedes. “We are sure that the anti-funsters at the ERK do not speak for the majority of the famously liberal and easy going Swedes,” the company said in a statement. “The ad simply reflects the way a lot of young girls like to dress. We hope the old farts at...

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- John McCain may not know how to use e-mail, but his campaign apparently knows how to use search. It's one technology area where the Republican seems to be besting Barack Obama. In the back and forth on paid Google search ads, voters can find Mr. Obama challenging Sarah Palin's record of reform, Mr. McCain is pointing out Joe Biden's contradictory statements about Mr. Obama and Mr. Obama defending his Christian faith. Mr. McCain appears to be reaping the most benefit from search. He is aggressively buying Obama and Biden's keywords as well as issues such as...

Swedish clothing retailer Hennes & Mauritz has been given the all clear to open an outlet on the swish shopping street Champs-Élysées. H & M beat off the vociferous objections of Paris city council. France's top administrative court, the State Council, rejected an appeal by Paris city council which moved in January to block a store licence granted to the retailer, according to deputy Paris mayor Lyne Cohen-Solal. "We are completely powerless" to stop the spread of big chain stores on what is touted as the most beautiful avenue in the world, she said. The city has now exhausted all...

Two Delaware residents are giving new meaning to the term "pushing" Obama, according to criminal drug charges filed Thursday. Fifty-two bags of heroin in bags stamped both with letters spelling out OBAMA and an image in the likeness of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama were confiscated following a routine car stop on Interstate 95 in Upper Chichester, according to Pennsylvania State Police.

Firm launches bottled water - from the same source as taps Last updated at 23:20pm on 23.08.08  Cambridge Water's new product comes from the same aquifer as its tap supply For years, utility companies have told us that we are wasting our money buying mineral water.But now a firm which makes millions from selling tap water has started marketing bottled mineral water – from the same underground source.The parent company of Cambridge Water has invested £10million in a bottling plant above a chalk aquifer.The new company, Iceni Waters, has already struck deals with stores including Tesco, Morrisons and the...

Say what you will about Rachael Ray, but the jaunty chef-next-door knows how to build a brand. She began winning audiences with catch phrases like "EVOO" (for extra-virgin olive oil) on her first Food Network show, 30 Minute Meals, in 2001. Today, she has four Food Network programs, including Tasty Travels and $40 a Day. Her nationally syndicated, Oprah-backed talk show, Rachael Ray, is averaging 2.6 million viewers this season, and her Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine has 1.5 million readers. She endorses Dunkin' Donuts too--all to the tune of $18 million a year. More established chefs also know...

Barack Obama is the most left-wing candidate the Democrats have nominated since George McGovern. If Obama wins the presidency, I think it is fair to postulate that it will be George McGovern's first term. Like McGovern, Obama staked out his territory as the antiwar candidate at the left end of the field of Democratic presidential candidates. His antiwar position, including his concocted critique of Hillary Clinton's purported "saber rattling" on Iran, was his signature issue through the Democratic primaries. One of the ironies of Obama's (sermon to the Germans) last week was his praise of the 1948 airlift that broke...

Executives from the state highway department are again defending themselves at the Capitol against people who say they are using taxpayer money to advance an agenda in favor of toll roads in Texas. At the heart of the issue are claims that TxDOT has hired lobbyists, using taxpayer dollars, to push in favor of projects like the Trans-Texas Corridor. Part of that is the "Keep Texas Moving" website. "Marketing is undertaken to inform drivers in the Austin area about the opening of new toll roads, toll road locations and incentive periods, and about the benefits of paying with an electronic...

Coffee giant Starbucks Corp. has released its first list of store closures since it announced a major downsizing July 1, and five of the eight California locations to be shuttered are in the Inland area.

In October 2000, at a whole-day conference in New York organized by the Association of Asian American Advertising Agencies (A5), the forerunner of the Asian American Advertising Federation (3AF), "the business case for Asian American marketing" was the focus of discussion. The organizers of the conference wanted to call attention to the importance of Asian Americans as a consumer market and to the fact that this was not reflected in the segment’s share of advertising dollars being spent by corporate America. Ironically, while speaker after speaker spoke in glowing terms about the buying power of Asian Americans, not one touched...

Top 10 Most Brilliant Marketing Screw Ups….1. Coors put its slogan, “Turn it loose,” into Spanish, where it was read as “Suffer from diarrhea.”2. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.”3. Clairol introduced the “Mist Stick”, a curling iron, into German only to find out that “mist” is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the “manure stick.”4. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the U.S., with the beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they learned that...

I was looking at the Oakley site for sunglasses, and came across this : Looks like I'm not getting Oakleys. Oakley Contact Information

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2008 – Web-based social-networking and video-sharing sites such as “MySpace” and “YouTube” may be the best place to turn to entice the nation’s best and brightest young people to work for the Defense Department. That is among the conclusions of college business students who entered a contest to help the department increase its applicant pool for critical civilian jobs that require foreign-language abilities. The students, undergraduates at five U.S.-based colleges and universities, were recognized at a Pentagon ceremony today for their recruiting and marketing plans. “Sometimes we get down on young people,” Patricia Bradshaw, DoD’s deputy undersecretary...

Rush for 23-cent pizzas closes Papa John's stores Chain seeks police help at 6 local shops Thursday, May 8, 2008 9:34 AM Updated: Thursday, May 8, 2008 05:24 PM THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Overwhelmed by the response to a promotion offering 23-cent pizzas, Papa John's closed its Columbus stores before dinner today. Columbus Police officers were called before 5 p.m. to help close the pizza shops because of concerns that the large crowds could become unruly, said Amanda Ford, a police spokeswoman. She said there are about 20 Papa John's locations in the city, but officers were beginning by assisting at...

I'm Absolut Swedish but NEVER EVER again will I buy Absolut Vodka and I will, at least, TRY to avoid other products of V&S Group (their repertoire is a pretty broad one though and I kinda party from time to time..), a former Swedish company which recently was sold to French Pernod Ricard (for the sum of €5,626 billion). I've also managed to convince my father and some of my friends to join my initiative and I'll continue to campaign! The background is, of course, the already infamous Absolut Vodka ad with the words "In an Absolut World" slapped over...

Most of us recognize brands we use everyday. Picking coffee at Starbucks, visiting Trader Joe's for groceries or stopping by Home Depot for materials for the weekend home improvement project are things we often do without thinking. Yet the reason we buy something, visit a store or contribute to a particular effort is based on how we know about it, how we understand it, and how we value it - its brand. Even paying attention to something we know nothing about is a conscious decision and could be a rejection of known brands. Most brands we easily identify and use...

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. — As operators of sex-oriented Web sites gather at the Internext convention in Las Vegas this week, a major leak at a little New Jersey company is likely to be a big topic. Freehold-based Too Much Media, which sells accounting software for adult Web sites, told its customers last month that a security breach on its computers allowed hackers to access various adult Web sites' subscriber lists. Keith Kimmel of Norman, Okla., who runs two Web sites that feature porn, said the breach has the potential to embarrass. "Would you really want a record floating around the...

Video Professor? I remember seeing infomercials for The Video Professor years ago. He sells computer instructional material. I never would have guessed he's still in business. But after reading this, I know why: A Visit to the Video Professor's 'Classroom'. For 20 years, John Scherer, otherwise known as the Video Professor, has advertised on cable TV the wonders of his educational software. "I am so confident that I'm going to give you one free disc," he says on his "limited time offer" advertisements. But in actuality, it appears impossible to just get one free disc. Instead, it is a packaged...

Critics Wonder Whether Her Controversial Comments Are Calculated to Sell More Books She has referred to Sept. 11 widows as "self-obsessed women" who are "enjoying their husbands' deaths," and has even admitted that she wished Timothy McVeigh had bombed The New York Times building instead of the one in Oklahoma City. Late last week, conservative pundit Ann Coulter landed herself in national headlines, yet again, after an appearance on CNBC's "The Big Idea," where she said she thought the world would be better if everyone were Christian. When host Donny Deutsch asked her whether that meant she wanted to see...